Who's driving?

Logistical Tip - A favorite app: Carpool Kids

Last year, my neighbor asked if I wanted to carpool to & from school. Yes! Yes! And hmmm, let me think about it . . . Yes??? Do I really want to do it? Will it actually make days/weeks easier, or is coordination going to become its own stressor? But yes! Let's go ahead & (try to figure out how to) carpool.

But quickly, the ever-lengthening text chain between us was driving me nuts. Who's driving which days? Who's driving which mornings or afternoons? There'd be last minute changes, or someone wasn't going to ride today because of an orthodontist appointment, or someone was taking the class pet for the weekend (and would you have room in the car for the cage & associated "stuff")?

I'd have to scour the string to reacquaint myself with all the assignments & changes. And Murphy's Law, after close inspection, I would most definitely still delete the "wrong" message, the one that contained this week's driving agenda. I started having nightmares - what if it was my turn to pick up the kids and it got lost in the dark, scary abyss of that stupid text string!?!?!?! This carpool was becoming the proverbial "logistical nightmare", my nemesis.

And to think carpooling was supposed to make my life easier.

There must be an app for this. If not, I'm going to invent it!

Oh, oh, okay, someone beat me to it. But they did a really good job.

Carpool-Kids allows you to set up recurring and one-time rides, add & delete riders, link a message to a ride ("Susie needs to be home by 3:30 for the dentist. Let me know if that's a problem."), and assign drivers. And if you care about fairness, it even creates a pie chart to show the distribution of drives.

If you have just one carpool, it's free. A Pro version is $2.99/month or $14.99/year.

How do we use it . . . Over the weekend, our neighbor & I usually look at our schedules. Assign ourselves to rides we will take; assign the other person to rides we can't do. Add some messages about possible conflicts. And then each morning, I just check the app to make sure I'm not dropping the ball, & the kids will end up spending the night in the cafeteria.